Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described herein are not prior art to the claims in the present application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Authentication generally refers to the process of establishing an identity of an individual or more generally to a process of establishing a claim that something is true. The type of authentication required in any given situation can vary widely. Many situations may require strict and multi-faceted authentication while other situations have less stringent authentication requirements.
There are various factors that can be used to establish identity or to establish that something is what it claims to be. Common factors used during authentication include ownership, knowledge, and inherency factors. Ownership factors often refer to something that a user possesses, such as a card or a token. Knowledge factors refer to something that is known to the user, such as a password Inherency factors often relate to something about the user, such as a fingerprint or a retinal pattern.
Password authentication is popular for accessing cloud services and in general for accessing services or content through a communication network. In systems where access privileges are assigned on a per-semantic-unit basis, it may be necessary to enter a password on a per-clause basis. Entering a password on a per-clause basis can be complex and/or tedious for users with touchscreen devices. The complexity and/or tedium may discourage users with touchscreen devices from setting passwords, which may pose a security threat.